ATI Radeon LE 32MB DDR

OpenGL Performance - Quake III Arena

As ATI had hoped with the Radeon LE release, the product falls between the Radeon DDR and the Radeon SDR in terms of performance in its native state. Clocked at 148MHz, the Radeon LE outperforms the slightly more expensive ($73 Vs $71) Radeon SDR by slightly under 5%. Nothing to write home about, yet.

The Radeon LE really shines when overclocked. At 640x480x32, the Radeon LE clocked at 183MHz does just what we expect it to: perform identically to the Radeon DDR. The two cards perform within .3 FPS of one another, leaving the two cards almost indistinguishable from one another.

Once again, in its native state the Radeon LE falls between the Radeon DDR and the Radeon SDR in terms of performance. The Radeon LE scores slightly higher than its SDR brother, about 1% to be exact.

When overclocked, the Radeon LE does something that the Radeon SDR only wished it could do: perform like a Radeon DDR. At 1024x768x32, the Radeon LE at 183MHz performs only 2% slower than the Radeon DDR. The small differences in speed, which we will see throughout the benchmarks at higher resolutions, is probably caused by the slightly different way that the Radeon LE accesses the memory (mainly the memory timing set in the card's BIOS). Nonetheless, the 2% performance difference seems to be well worth the $68 difference in price, assuming that your Radeon LE can hit these speeds.

At 1600x1200x32, the Radeon DDR's extra memory bandwidth allows it to take a larger step away form the Radeon SDR. Here the card in its native state performs 11% faster than the Radeon SDR. At 30 FPS, however, the frame rate does leave something to be desired.

We find that overclocking the card, once again, reveals some pleasing results. The Radeon LE at 183/183MHz performs almost like a Radeon DDR, in fact the two are separated by only 1 FPS, a mere 3%. Contrast that to the 95% difference in price and it is easy to see why the Radeon LE may be the perfect card for those wishing to take a bit of a gamble.